routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

Drama before Shakespeare
73
themselves and suffer the consequences. Critics have, at different times,
stressed the tragic end of Marlowe’s heroes or, conversely, the spectacular
subversiveness of their aims: like all great writers, Christopher Marlowe can
be interpreted and reinterpreted by readers and audiences of every age.
Every age, sometimes every decade, has different heroes. It is
instructive to compare the Marlovian dramatic hero of the late 1580s
and early 1590s with the Shakespearean hero that evolved after
Marlowe’s early death (in a pub brawl; some say because he was a
spy). Marlowe’s heroes are larger than life, exaggerated both in their
faults and their qualities. They want to conquer the whole world
(Tamburlaine), to attain limitless wealth (Barabas, the Jew of Malta),
to possess all knowledge (Doctor Faustus). The verse they speak is
correspondingly powerful, rhetorical, rich in metaphor and effect.
Continuing with geographical references, Tamburlaine, victorious
over his enemies, rejoices in the ‘divine’ Zenocrate, and tells her how
he would redraw the map of the world:
Zenocrate, were Egypt Jove’s own land,
Yet would I with my sword make Jove to stoop.
I will confute those blind geographers
That make a triple region in the world,
Excluding regions which I mean to trace,
And with this pen reduce them to a map,
Calling the provinces, cities, and towns,
After my name and thine, Zenocrate:
Here at Damascus will I make the point
That shall begin the perpendicular. . . .
(Tamburlaine the Great, Part One)
Barabas, similarly, is quite explicit about his role, his greed, and his religion:
Thus, loving neither, will I live with both,
Making a profit of my policy;
And he from whom my most advantage comes,
Shall be my friend.
This is the life we Jews are us’d to lead;
And reason too, for Christians do the like.
(The Jew of Malta)